Sunday, October 16, 2016

#CounselorsNotCops: Youth Justice Against the Police State

Photo: Stephanie Monte

By Sikivu Hutchinson

At the corner of Central Avenue and 120th Street
in South Central Los Angeles an abandoned Boys and Girls club trailer sits
across from a fast food place and a liquor store. The trailer is a few blocks from high
achieving King-Drew Magnet of Medicine and Science, a predominantly African
American and Latino school and unsung model of culturally competent instruction
in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In neighboring Compton, children navigate
vacant lots, brown fields and abandoned buildings to get to school. Several
miles away at Gardena High School, students are handcuffed for the “crime” of
truancy. By contrast, their white South
Bay and Westside counterparts a few freeway exits away have an array of
extracurricular and recreational resources to choose from, largely free from the
yoke of police state suppression.

The recent murder of 18 year-old Carnell
Snell by the LAPD in the Westmont community near Washington Prep High
School in South L.A. highlights how the constant threat of state violence fatally
undermines the learning environments of students of color. Drive down the stretch of Western Avenue near
where Snell was gunned down and the most prominent public spaces are fast food joints,
storefront churches, 99 cent stores and beauty salons. On the corner of Manchester and Western, Jesse
Owens Park is one of the few
in an area that has been branded
“park poor” (a term that that accurately describes the need but still carries a
deficit laden stigma). On a daily basis our youth contend with unsafe
conditions that white teens in middle class and affluent areas of the city either
don’t have to deal with or have a social safety net to shield them from. From high
rates of gun violence to sexual violence, sex trafficking, police abuse and
school pushout, youth of color in L.A. must navigate criminalization on
multiple fronts.

It’s been well-documented that simply having a massive
police presence in the community increases the risk that youth of color will be
stopped, harassed, frisked, arrested, or, tragically, murdered by law
enforcement. This threat, coupled with
the dearth of community centers, afterschool programs and recreational spaces,
further institutionalizes violence as a norm in working class neighborhoods of
color. The psychic and emotional trauma
of living in this state of siege often goes unrecognized and untreated.

With the largest
juvenile jail system and probation populations in the U.S., Los Angeles and California
are world leaders in incarceration. L.A.
has the distinction of being the poorest city in the nation while having one of
the country’s most expensive housing markets, just behind New York City and San
Francisco. Over the past year, L.A. has
also made global headlines as the homeless
capital of the nation, with 50% of youth and adult homeless folk being
African American. In the midst of these
crises, the Youth Justice Coalition
(YJC) community activist organization and member of the nationwide Dignity in Schools Campaign has
presented a groundbreaking plan for a Youth
Development department that would give youth of color a real shot at
educational and employment equity. YJC
is calling on Los Angeles City and County government to redirect at least 5% of
its police suppression and mass incarceration budgets to youth programming,
recreation and job resources. The
organization estimates that redirecting suppression funds would allow for the
hiring of 1000 peace-builders (offering counseling, mentoring and restorative
justice assistance) as well as the creation of 50,000 youth jobs and 100 youth
centers. The initiative has been
championed by L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis and L.A. City Councilmember
Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

YJC’s proposal is based on tons
of data that unfavorably compare Los Angeles’ expenditures on suppression
and incarceration with that of youth education and culturally responsive social
services. For example, even highly-gentrified,
segregated cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco have youth
development departments. By contrast,
Los Angeles only spends $2 million on youth services, while the Los Angeles Animal
Control Service spends $13 million to retrieve stray animals. Making a substantial investment in youth
services would appear to be a win-win for a city whose poverty and homeless
rates have skyrocketed, but the LAPD recently announced that it is purchasing
more paramilitary equipment on the public dime. According to YJC’s report
“Building a Positive Future for L.A.’s Youth”, the “proposed Los Angeles city
budget for 2016-2017 includes a $180 million increase for the LAPD”. Across the
nation, police departments have long exploited the fear of mass shootings, drug
busts and terrorist attacks to justify multi-million dollar weapons’
expenditures. In Los Angeles, recent increases
in violent crime, thefts and property crime—which some have attributed to an
increase in the homeless population and employment disparities—have further
stoked public fears about rampant lawlessness. If the LAPD were to be believed,
more spending on tanks, rocket grenades, body armor and high tech electric
motorcycles is the antidote to crime spikes.

Yet, by failing to invest in youth and youth spaces, City
and County government aid and abet crime, systematically looting communities of
color which bear the burden of anemic to nonexistent recreational, therapeutic
and job resources. YJC’s initiative is timely and radical for a city that has a
long, pernicious legacy of being a pioneer in state violence for the poor and corporate
welfare for the rich.